When I was younger and I hadn’t played many older games and I wasn’t really paying attention to the ones that I HAD I would often find myself thinking that while some games were obviously worth recognizing for being the first in iconic series and having cool music and being the foundations upon which great things would be built, there wasn’t ACTUALLY that much separating something like a Mario or a Zelda from the kinds of games that we had in my house growing up that were utterly forgotten by history like Kung Fu Heroes and Swords and Serpents, or actively maligned like Home Alone 2 or Battletoads. OBVIOUSLY this was an ignorant way to think about these games, a dismissive attitude informed by an unwillingness to branch out of my comfort zone, one that I talk about often on here. Making an active effort to shed this attitude is a general good because it not only helps me better appreciate the more run of the mill or forgotten games of the era as worthy of attention and examination but it does also help me identify DA CLASSICS and goddamn is Castlevania ever one of those.

Obviously there’s a lot here that does this, from the nonstop bangers (a game with ten pieces of music where every single one of them is a stone cold classic broooooooo) that are perfectly matched to the tone of each stage, to the variety between those stages despite the relatively limited bag of tricks the devs were working with, to the deliberate control scheme, to the distinctly minimal number of fuck off dickhead unfair set pieces. Even the premise is pitch perfect, goofy enough to be remarkable, for every moment where you turn a proverbial corner into a new boss pulled from the classic movie monster canon to be worth a hearty chuckle without shedding the instantly classic schlock horror vibe it’s cultivating.

I think the thing that’s really cool to me though, especially for a game from 1986, is how well Castlevania establishes, uh Castlevania. Like, the castle itself. For a game with literally no text in it, Castlevania (the game) does an incredible job at rooting you in its senses of character, of narrative, of place. The theme park tour of Dracula’s castle takes you through grounds and gardens, over towers and parapets, down into dungeons and caves, and it all feels like a natural progression. You get that little map screen in between stages that shows your progress through the castle and you can really feel it. Castlevania does the smart thing of mixing you up between moving left-to-right and moving right-to-left too, which doesn’t sound like much but it does make it feel a lot more like you’re working your way through a real building complex and less like only a series of levels. This kind of attention to detail is what elevates those good games to Great ones. It makes Castlevania a real pleasure to experience, it makes it immersive. It’s so cool to find that degree of world in a linear sidescrolling action platformer on the NES. Games are so cool! It’s this kind of shit that keeps me excited for the medium.

FUCK the hallway before the grim reaper though, all my homies hate the hallway before the grim reaper.

NEXT TIME: SIMON'S QUEST